RS

MEMBER DIARY

Ayers: Abolish the Prisons

It’s a shame Ayers was so reticent to share his views before the election:

Re-emerging from his self-imposed silence, Ayers is trying to escape the negative stigma of his violent past by arguing that he was much less violent than the U.S. government. Here he again attacks the government (in the form of the prison system) for what it does to people that implicitly match his view of himself: folks who have good excuses for violence, crime and anti-social behavior. In Ayers’ view, these people don’t belong in prison any more than he does.

Barack Obama had kind words for Ayers’ work on this subject. Now that he’s been elected president, he’ll have the opportunity to show us whether he thinks Ayers is right — that putting violent criminals behind bars is unfair and/or counterproductive. If his long association with Ayers is any indication, I suspect we may have our answer.